Read. Review. Repeat.
[Note from Cynthia Sharp and Timothy Shay: “The Fire is our response to the forest fires that devour the Cascadia region in the overly hot summers resulting from climate change. It’s submitted exclusively to The Miramichi Reader with permission from both authors.”]
What was the name of the blaze that warmed you burned you scarred you lifted you as ash is lifted?…
“A town is a tin of children in an ocean,” writes Anna van Valkenburg in her debut poetry collection, a rich, unpredictable, and deeply surreal exploration of identity and the multiple contradictions we each embody. These poems, set in locations real and imaginary, magical and banal, inhabited by figures out of Slavic folklore and a Boschian landscape, strive to unearth truths, especially those that are difficult or uncomfortable, using Bertolt Brecht’s maxim “Do not fear death so much as an inadequate life” as a touchstone.…
About the author: Full name Peremartoni Nagy Zsuzsanna. Susanna Peremartoni graduated in Miskolc and Budapest. From the age of 23, she lived in Darmstadt, Germany, as a ceramic assistant. She has exhibited in Helsinki and Vienna. She published her first volume in 2016 with Black Eagle Publisher (Budapest). In 2018 she produced a Hungarian and English recording of a jazz poetry CD at Origó Studio.…
I became an instant fan of D.A. Lockhart’s poetry after reading 2019’s Devil in the Woods, a collection of “letters” addressed to famous Canadians such as Don Cherry, Lord Beaverbrook and Bruno Gerussi, to name a few. It was shortlisted for Best Poetry in 2020. Now with Tùkhòne, he combines haiku and haibun to create some of the most evocative prose and poetry I have read in some time.…
Author and poet Cynthia Sharp has submitted two of her newest poems, “The Temple of Trees” and “In an Evergreen Altar” written to Jilly Watson’s painting Sanctuary (see below) for a book they are collaborating on in future. They make their debut here in The Miramichi Reader.
The Temple of Trees
Tangerine path opens
to the universe,
empyrean resin made strong. …
Go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.…
[A] rich, unpredictable, and deeply surreal exploration of identity and the multiple contradictions we each embody. These poems, set in locations real and imaginary, magical and banal, inhabited by figures out of Slavic folklore and a Boschian landscape, strive to unearth truths, especially those that are difficult or uncomfortable, using Bertolt Brecht’s maxim “Do not fear death so much as an inadequate life” as a touchstone.…
Susanna Peremartoni graduated in Miskolc and Budapest. From the age of 23 she lived in Darmstad, Germany, as a ceramic assistant. She has exhibited in Helsinki and Vienna. She published her first volume in 2016 with Black Eagle Publisher (Budapest). In 2018 she produced a Hungarian and English recording of a jazz poetry CD at Origó Studio. The Hungarian CD is available at the Rózsavölgyi Music Store, the Wave Record Store and at the Plate Maker.…
I see no soldier’s uniform as I walk along these shores
but fresh blood cliffs, musket grass,
and a labyrinth of our relics,
the unfolding of this puzzle to figure out a broader picture,
as rose clashed with la fleur de lys…
like an arcanum shared by a friend
who said to follow water trails
like a pirate in search of a chest, as magnet speaks closer to sand …
He said many have found treasures under the sheet of their own graves.…
her debut collection The Only Card In A Deck of Knives out with Wolsak &Wynn publishers, the poet Lauren Turner takes us “to the edge of something” as she writes in the first line of her poem “If You Haven’t Found Me Yet, Say Good-bye”. But what that something is – gendered illness, vulnerability, anger, personal relationships — changes throughout the collection.…
I opened up Sheree Fitch’s memoir in poetry You Won’t Always be this Sad and was sobbing by page thirty. The famous Maritime author breaks our hearts once again as we follow along on her journey through grief after her son, Dustin, died at thirty-seven on March 2, 2018. Fitch describes the path to the other side of grief as a labyrinth: one gets lost in a labyrinth, often has to backtrack, finds themselves back where they started, loses a sense of grounding when there’s no sight over the walls, but a labyrinth has an exit.…
A spin on poetry review. Exploration in verse.
Nature. Flora, fauna, feelings felt
experienced and known, flown, not
vanished but migrated, sailed south
from Great Lake shores and tributaries.
Barn Door. “It’s a wet, late spring that makes its way / across Lake Ontario through freezing rain, / barely unravelling snow from tree tops. // Not a pinhead fits in between rain drops.”…
In language that twists together hobo slang and flights of troubadourish diction, Hearts Amok scrutinizes the history of the love sonnet in Surrey, England and simultaneously celebrates the tickings and tollings of one love-struck heart in Surrey, British Columbia. Examining the underpinnings of love, this book journeys from the Middle Ages to the present where Spenst dates his way through Vancouver to finally find the love of his life.…
2020 was the first year that The Miramichi Reader started reviewing poetry on a regular basis, therefore this is also the first year that we are giving out “The Very Best!” Book Awards in this category. While all of this year’s winners hail from Atlantic Canada, there is so much great poetry being written all across Canada. It looks like poetry at The Miramichi Reader is here to stay!…